Spaulding Associates News

Interview: John Waterhouse, EBDG - “Be Bold in Thinking but Cautious in Application”

John Waterhouse is a ubiquitous character in the U.S. maritime industry, a deep-thinker, a signature bow tie and more than three decades of naval architecture and marine engineering experience and success as co-owner of the Seattle-based Elliott Bay Design Group (EBDG).While growing up, John Waterhouse spent some time in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and it was as a young boy standing on the shores of English Bay, watching ships come in from around the world to load and unload their cargos, when he realized that a maritime career could be his future.

Elliott Bay Design Group Opens Office in Alaska

Elliott Bay Design Group (EBDG), the naval architecture and marine engineering firm based in Seattle and New Orleans, has established an office in Ketchikan, Alaska, to meet growing customer demand in that region. EBDG said it is the preferred service provider for a number of Alaska-based companies with which it shares long-standing relationships. EBDG is a member of the Ketchikan Marine Industry Council and shares that body's commitment to expanding Ketchikan's marine industrial capacity. The council's diverse membership represents a cross section of Ketchikan's business and civic leaders and highlights the city's many strengths and capabilities.

Sea Kindly: A Steady Vessel by Design

Seakeeping refers to motions of a vessel in waves, but sea-kindliness is a characteristic sought after in most vessels. A sea-kindly vessel is easy on its crew and easy on its gear. Trying to define sea-kindly is difficult. The deep sea mariner may use qualitative descriptions such as "an easy roll" or "a wet boat," but the vessel designer must look for quantitative descriptions. There are six degrees of motion in a vessel, three are linear: surge, heave, and sway; three are rotational: pitch, roll, and yaw. Each of these degrees of motion has associated values of amplitude, velocity, and acceleration. A vessel in a beam sea can be rolling up to 30 degrees (amplitude) and the associated acceleration could be 0.5 g or 1 g.

Ferry COHO Gets a Repower

Elliott Bay Design Group (EBDG) announced the successful completion of sea trials, following the repower of the M/V COHO. Vessel owner and operator - Black Ball Transport Inc., retained EBDG to design and engineer the repower, and also to provide owner's representation during the yard period at Todd Pacific Shipyard. The successful yard period and sea trials culminated over eight months of effort by various EBDG personnel, spanning the disciplines of Naval Architecture, Marine, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineering.